Month: September 2020

GREAT OLD BEAVER BROAD DAY

heidi08 Beavers September 20, 2020

Whoohoo! I went round the sun another whole year! Happy Birthday to me, and thank you to beavers for helping me age gracefully. Case in point, when I was briefly feeling a little wistful about getting sooo old. I got this email from Barbara of Marin who does the butterfly display at the festival. She was excited to attend and wanted to get a watching group together

GREAT OLD BROADS? There’s a wilderness group called great old broads? Where do I sign up?

So of course my question for Barbara immediately was just how old and how great does a woman need to join? Because I know just what I want for my birthday. The preview of Sarah’s film is in October and stars and conversation with Mary Obrien.

Of course I’m joining why even ask?

For the record I am turning 55 today, but honestly I don’t worry as much about it I might have. But once a million years ago with a formidable young patient asked “How old are you???” and in a bizarre effort to circumvent the conversation about boundaries and how old did she want me to be stupid stuff therapists do I answered “I was born in ’65”.

To which the child answered with complete unironic sincerity “Yeah but WHICH 65?”

To this DAY this still makes me laugh aloud. Because for that child I might as well have been born in 1765 because it was the same OLD as 200 years later. To children we are all the same age. Not young. And however much you fiddle with the margins it really doesn’t matter.

Plus I’m a Great Old Broad now so it’s really fine!

Also on friday I got this photo from Amy the chalk artist from Napa who scanned it from the new Women’s Day issue for October. Call it a delicious destiny.

Isn’t that adorable? I told Amy “Oh my god! What a incidence! It’s almost my birthday!” And she answered, “OMG what a coincidence, it IS my birthday!” Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

I always knew we were peas in a pod!

I also received the sweetest little hand painted card from my good friend and office partner Erika, who has helped us for years at the festival. Since she can’t get to the clay studio she is trying her hand at watercolors.Pretty darn cute, am I right? I would say the cutest card ever but I just sat down at the computer to find Jon’s amazing three dee birthday card which is made out of a beaver chew. It’s a little hard to photograph since it’s three dimensional but it this should give you an idea.

If you’ve been around a while you’ll recognize the image as a beaver tattoo made for an art project by Coyote studios. Seems like it worked pretty splendidly on a wood surface which is worth remembering hmm…

As a last burst of beaver good news, I got a sent by finished movie to the woman who sold me the signed copy of the book you see in the opening images. The nice woman who helped me who runs an antique book shop in colorado and actually gave me another book just because she liked our story. As she had several signed copies and lives in the area I assumed she had some connection with the Mills family. This is her response this morning when I got up.

Ok, that was awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. I’m not sure if his granddaughter and great granddaughter are still running his homestead museum or not, but I am sure they would love to see this. I am friends with Enos’ great niece and I will share It with her too. Her grandfather was Enos’s brother Joe – also a writer. And her father was Dorr Yeager a NPS Naturalist who was also an author. Pretty amazing legacy.

I actually got a little choked up when I shared this with my husband. I just love when things from my shop find the right homes.

Enos Mills grandchildren watching my movie! Is that the most amazing thing you ever heard? I knew it was destiny he came to Martinez. Stick with beavers. They will give you a great birthday every time!

“THE ORIGINAL CONSERVATIONISTS”

heidi08 Educational, History September 19, 2020

I think it was February when I wrote researchers across the hemisphere asking them to read the last chapter of Enos Mills seminal book into my recording account. I’m sure it was May before I finished nagging everyone and they actually did it. Or maybe it was July.

In beaver World was published in 1913 and remains the most accurate account of observing beavers ever written. Enos really understand the impact beavers have on the ecology around them. He knew why they mattered. Remember that Enos Mills was a great admirer of John Muir and actually came to Martinez to meet him in 1908. Martinez is brimming with beaver stories.

I was so proud of myself for finishing the Enos Mills movie yesterday. I wanted to release it before my birthday. I learned the new imovie to do it which is important because I made all my other movies on the now defunct gold standard imovie on an archane laptop that has been steadily inching towards the end of its life. I am never sure when the day will come that I can never make another presentation. So I figured I’d use the Covid lockdown to hold a gun to my head and force myself to learn the new one which is supposedly more like the old one they killed.

The new one isn’t bad. And I have the best readers any director could ask for. When you listen think about how remarkable it is that this naturalist watching beavers could hit upon every major ‘discovery’ about beavers that has been made in the last 30 years.

This is my favorite chapter of the very best beaver book ever written. I tried to assign every reader the section that related most directly to their work or field of research. I really love how everyone’s voice helps tell the story. Thank you to all who helped and please feel free to share. We need more people to read and appreciate this remarkable book.

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BEAVER DEFENDERS ON VANCOUVER ISLAND

heidi08 Flow Device Installed, Who's saving beavers now? September 18, 2020

Plenty of good beaver news this morning, with this from Vancouver Island. There’s a brand new beaver advocacy group in the world and the teamed up with our friends at FBD to install a flow device. I just checked out their website and was surprised to see my name – not just Worth A Dam or martinez beavers which is more expected.

Well, if you’re going to make a name for yourself, I suppose there are worse ways.

And right out of the gate they installed a pair of outstanding flow devices,

City of Port Alberni learns to coexist with beavers

Port Alberni has become the first beaver-friendly community on Vancouver Island.

The city has partnered with The Fur-Bearers (a non-profit society dedicated to protecting fur-bearing animals) and VanIsle Wetlands (a Port Alberni company that specializes in non-lethal methods of managing beaver activities) to have beaver conflict sites fitted with “flow devices” that will reduce lethal trapping while protecting local infrastructure, wildlife and the greater community.

Lesley Fox, the executive director of the Fur-Bearers, said the non-profit reached out to the city of Port Alberni about a year ago, proposing a sustainable, coexistence-focused solution to beaver conflict sites.

“Most people are surprised to know that beavers are a part of our cities,” she explained. “This is an opportunity for understanding the role of beavers, and the important role they play in keeping the water on land.”

Hurray for the Vancouver Island beavers! It’s wonderful to see good work being done so near by. Let’s meet the new kids on the beaver block, so to speak.

Chris Holtslag, the founder of VanIsle Wetlands, says beaver dams can also protect downstream spawning areas, which helps increase salmon and trout populations.

“You get better fish, bigger fish when you have slow-moving streams,” said Holtslag.

However, dams can also lead to infrastructure damage. A blocked culvert, for example, can cause flooding and damage to nearby roadways. Removing dams and beavers are short-term solutions, as new beavers will return to the sites where beavers were removed. Beavers are triggered by the sound and flow of the water to build a dam, explained Holtslag.

Hi Chris, great to meet you. I’m so glad this work is happening!

Flow devices are a solution that can protect both the animals and the infrastructure, by allowing water to continue moving as designed regardless of damming activity. These devices have now been installed in two locations on Lugrin Creek: one can be found just off of Beaver Creek Road, across the street from the Alberni Co-op, while the other is located on the Kitsuksis Dyke trail.

The two sites were “especially troublesome” with beavers, said Fox. The mouth of the culvert on Beaver Creek Road had been blocked by a four-foot dam. Holtslag installed a culvert protection fence, as well as a pond leveller: a pipe and cage system that helps to manage the height and volume of water near beaver dams. The cage at the end protects the intake from damage.

“It was a lot of work, very muddy,” said Holtslag. “I put a hole in my hip waders in the first five minutes.”

At the other site on the Kitsuksis Dyke trail, Holtslag installed a pond leveller straight through a beaver dam.

Now that’s a familiar site! And a great look for you, Chris. Beavers will be very happy to cooperate with your efforts.

Fox said she’s not aware of any other municipality on Vancouver Island that has made this commitment to addressing conflict sites, although the Fur-Bearers have worked with other municipalities in the Lower Mainland to install flow devices.

“It’s really taking off in other places in B.C.,” she said. “This is a great success story, not only for Port Alberni, but the Island as a whole. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from local residents, who are happy to see a more long-term solution,” she added.

Fox says a shift in policies is happening at the municipal level when it comes to wildlife.

“We’re responding to a need, and it’s coming from the municipalities, for long-term, safer ways of managing wildlife conflicts,” she said. “And we hope to see more of it on the Island.”

Beavers are great teachers. They’ll make sure you know right away if anything needs tweaking or changing. Thanks Chris and Leslie for giving the beavers of Vancouver Island a fighting chance. It’s hard work to colonize a place when you first must cross a strait filled with Orcas. They worked hard to get there.

It’s the least you can do.

HOW YOU TALK TO REPORTERS ABOUT BEAVERS REALLY MATTERS

heidi08 Who's blaming beavers now? September 17, 2020

Yesterday was an exciting dejavu with some calls to Fairfield public works and the local paper that had the familiar echo of history to them. I ended up having a great conversation with a reporter who is now meeting with Virginia at the dam site this morning. It was strange to have all the urgency of our Martinez story but have it be less personally upsetting to what me. When I dealt with our beavers talking to the press was always breathlessly terrifying that I would say something wrong and they would suffer because of it. This was someone else’s beaver so I could be calmer, focused and more clear-headed.

We talked a long time and as he knew nothing about beavers or the Martinez story I later had the distinct feeling of helping somebody up a mountain a little bit at a time. I would explain what dams were for and then wait for him to catch up. Then explain why beavers mattered and help him along a little more. In the end it felt like he had a pretty great vantage point onto why beavers matter and why removing a dam would alter the ecosystem. Maybe I’m explaining it wrong or exaggerating but it felt important, and I was both hyped up and exhausted afterwards: ready for battle or a long nap.

In the end I connected him to Sonoma Water Agency who had just installed two flow devices and talked about how our success in Martinez. We learned that it HAD been the city that ripped out the dam but didn’t figure out whether the beavers had been harmed already or whether there was a permit to do so in the future.

I’m imagining that quite a few people got phone calls or emails yesterday that they weren’t expecting. And I expect we’ll hear more on the story soon. We wish all good things to Virginia this morning. Good thing beavers can manage in fairly shallow water. This is from the Wenatchee project in Washington.

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In the end how we talk to reporters about beavers really matters. Yesterday this rather strange article starring Glynnis Hood was published. It is from the very tippy top of Canada that is almost Greenland.

Meet Nunavut’s newest arrival: the beaver

A recent beaver catch in Baker Lake, along with this summer’s earlier beaver sighting near Kugluktuk, more than 1,000 kilometres northwest of Baker Lake, have some wondering whether beavers are expanding their range into Nunavut.

The short answer is yes, said Glynnis Hood, a beaver expert and environmental science professor at the University of Alberta.

“What you’re seeing is the start of a frontal movement of animals that are ready to explore, and if it works others will come,” Hood said.

Okay so I’d rather a friend like Glynnis talks to the press about the scourge of beavers ruining the permafrost than anyone else, but sometimes scientists are trying so hard to appear unbiased that they err on the other side.

Case in point:

“Beavers are great colonizers,” she said. “They build on their past successes. They will build a dam and pond system and then, of course, they can successfully reproduce and their young will disperse.”

“Think of how coronavirus spreads, Hood suggested as a comparison: one person can infect two people, and those people can each infect two more people, and “so the spread does get to be fast.”

Good Lord Glynnis. Pick another metaphor, will you? Corona Virus? Yes, beavers are EXACTLY like a crippling plague that’s killing our way of life. You know one that we are spending all our money and time avoiding.

Various articles on beavers have dubbed beavers “ecosystem engineers” and “agents of Arctic destruction and have accused them of “running amok in the Arctic.” That because their landscaping may speed up the thawing of permafrost and release more climate-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“They can do all of that. They can be a major disturbance, but they are a natural force in nature,” said Hood.

Well yes they are natural. Hurricanes and earthquakes are Natural too. It doesn’t mean anyone likes them. Glynnis can’t you use that big old brain of yours to say something nice about beavers?

“I don’t think they are the only reason that the Arctic is warming and permafrost is melting,” she said, adding that she prefers to see beavers as “our ecological second chance” because they also create biodiversity.”

Next time LEAD WITH THAT okay???

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!

FAIRFIELD TRAGEDY

heidi08 What's killing beavers now? September 16, 2020

You remember the story of the beautiful cascading dams through the middle of Fairfield and how they were being lovingly followed and photographed by resident Virginia Holsworth. Well, it’s September 16. We all guessed that this would happen this month. But there is no joy in being right when something this devastating is the cause. This is what that big beautiful dam in Fairfield looks like now.

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Those are the lush reeds that had grown in the deep water exposed to their roots to die. Remember what it used to look like.Just a month ago Cheryl visited and so did our friend from Pittsburg. As far as I know the city has only take out the one large dam, but there are at least four others and I’m worried about what happens next.

Virginia is beside herself and rumors are flying that the city took the beaver kit and gave it to Suisun wildlife. We know that’s not true but I will do my best to move this into the public eye where we can still do some good. As Mike Callahan wrote once to me when I was heartbroken about our dam. ” Did they trap? If they haven’t trapped yet all is not lost.”

Here’s Virginia in her own words.

RIP Laurel Creek Dam (look in pictures to see before and after)

It happened, the city broke the dam. What was once a beautiful developing ecosystem is now destroyed. Hundreds of animals have lost their homes and avenues of travel. The steelhead that were growing have washed down stream. The frogs and turtles have been misplaced, the birds which feed on the animals have left. There is also talk from locales that the city also took a baby beaver from the area, which I will be looking into. (Edit: The baby beaver was found in Vacaville)

This is because the city would rather destroy than take preventative measures to work with the beavers, who will always keep coming back.

I will be out by the dam in the evenings creating community awareness and informing people of this Facebook page, so they can look for guidance on how to protect our beavers and local ecosystem.

I told Virginia she has three big jobs today. Number 1 call the mayor and find out who did this and whether a depredation permit has been saught. Number 2 call her neighbors and let them know what happened and what they can do. And number 3 local paper and get them interested in the dynamic habitat that was lost.

Believe me when I say I know just how she feels.

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